Posted
by
timothy
on Saturday July 07, 2012 @05:49PM
from the want-to-do-this-right-now dept.

MrSeb writes "An Israeli student has become the first person to meld his mind and movements with a robot surrogate, or avatar. Situated inside an fMRI scanner in Israel, Tirosh Shapira has controlled a humanoid robot some 2000 kilometers (1250 miles) away, at the Béziers Technology Institute in France, using just his mind. The system must be trained so that a particular "thought" (fMRI blood flow pattern) equates to a certain command. In this case, when Shapira thinks about moving forward or backward, the robot moves forward or backward; when Shapira thinks about moving one of his hands, the robot surrogate turns in that direction. To complete the loop, the robot has a camera on its head, with the image being displayed in front of Shapira. Speaking to New Scientist, it sounds like Shapira really became one with the robot: 'It was mind-blowing. I really felt like I was there, moving around,' he says. 'At one point the connection failed. One of the researchers picked the robot up to see what the problem was and I was like, "Oi, put me down!"'"

is to combine this technology with remotely piloted drones, spy-copters, and eventually combat robots. Then I can imagine a military formation formed up to receive orders, being told they were going to war, and then told to go to it - and no one needs to move:P

If such technology existed, why would that be better than a keyboard and mouse or a gamecontroller as an interface? And using my extensive experience in an environment where they have been used for "combative" purposes I ask: why is a huge latency desirable? And how is a human better than an aimbot?

Human lives are cheaper than advanced combat robots (with or without AI). The notion that no sacrifice in blood has to be made in war might be alluring to democratic politicians and their constituencies, but the sooner democracies in the world stop initiating wars the better the world will be off. Thus I am happy to say that due to economics drone armies will not conquer the world*, either under the pretext of humane intervention or blatant imperialism.**

* Conquest is long lived occupation (with repression) not mere military victory. The technological saturation point of destruction has already been reached, no further advancement is required.** If you read between the lines of this comment a "Fuck the USA" can be spotted.

The only reason you think of a military formation is that modern society is so far removed from necessary physical interactions with nature. Why military? This could be farmers controlling robots which gather crops.... computer connections are cheaper than transporting people in actual physical space.

The only reason you think of a military formation is that modern society is so far removed from necessary physical interactions with nature.

And your solution is to have even farmers interact with the earth only remotely?No, the reason to think of the military is because the military benefits most from removing its people from where the action is.

And your solution is to have even farmers interact with the earth only remotely?

Obviously. If people would like to interact with nature, they would. It's not like we are choosing to do what we hate. The only reason we romanticize nature is because we are so removed from it. In reality, survival is struggle against nature. The only reason we are able to forget that is because we have gotten so good at it.

Most of the comments so far seem to confuse EEG-based interfaces with fMRI-based ones, or local with telerobotics, but no great surprise there. The politics is sad, but again only to be expected.

We still can't do true mind-control of robots (there's no way to read minds yet, we can only say "pattern X equals action Y", which is not the same thing) but this is an interesting development to say the least. Think in terms of medicine. Robotic interfaces in surgery are typically data gloves or joystick, plus goggles, but muscles have poor granularity of control, data gloves and joysticks reduce this further, and goggles are incredibly low-res. If they get to the point where surgeons are limited only by the precision of their mind, you're looking at a major revolution.

The bigger issue, it seems to be, is feedback. Sure, you can train the machine to "read" certain patterns with attempts to move the arm, and potentially create very advanced interfaces, but the interface is purely one-way: there is no way to tell the human he has "touched" something. Cameras work to some extent to provide visual feedback, but more advanced and more delicate control requires something beyond just that. We need to find a way to provide neural feedback to replicate the sense of touch, at the very least. Sight can be provided easily (without requiring a neural interface), as can hearing, and smell is largely unneeded, but for an arm, touch feedback is essential.

Agreed. Force-feedback is a start, albeit a crude one, but it's not enough. It might be possible to electrically stimulate individual pressure nerves to give a sense of touch, since nerves are electrical by nature, but you're talking an amazing number of electrodes to get any detail and some major technological problems to get it to stimulate the right nerves.

For something that is compressible/expandable to some degree along only certain directions, you can simulate that with pneumatics. It's essentially the same as force-feedback (you apply pressure in one direction, something applies force in the opposite direction) but instead of having one or two motors, you can have a crude surface where each point applies different feedback. Mechanical devices of this kind aren't complex, require no new technology to be invented, and would be in the price range of a decent facility - I assume you don't hear of them because there's simply no scientific or industrial application outside of perhaps telerobotic pottery-making and there's not really a huge market for that, and the increase in the number of variables that could be fed back to the user is still going to be extremely small - an increase from 2 to 12 sounds reasonable - but the cost would be substantially more than 6x that of a joystick. The cost/benefit isn't there.

(there's no way to read minds yet, we can only say "pattern X equals action Y",

But isn't this what you are doing when you learn how to do something physical like play a guitar or pianno, or tennis, etc? Your mind equates how you move your fingers or body to a result or external action on your environment and you say to yourself, that's good or that's bad and you store the information. So now you know that if your fingers do X, you get Y note from the instrument, or you hit the ball. As far as I can tell, a

I don't think an fMRI interface is going to be very useful for controlling robots, because of the issue of temporal resolution. I think you can only acquire an fMRI image once every couple of seconds (at most). The above poster referred to the "granularity" issue with data gloves and joysticks, but it's a thousandfold worse with fMRI and probably always will be.

A better choice might be magnetoencephalography (MEG). Nearly instantaneous "image" acquisition, and as a side benefit, there are no health risks to the user (fMRI bombards you with intense magnetic fields and no one really knows if that's safe).

Ask any good backhoe operator about how he operates the machine and you'll find he doesn't think about the mechanics of his arms and feet interacting with the control levers. His brain abstracts all that and treats the hoe as an extension of his body. Once you've been trained how to move the controls, you stop thinking about it. You just dig.

A similar feeling could be generated simply by video goggles and a joystick. In fact when I fly my airplane using a video downlink, it feels like "I'm there." Seeing yourself on the ground is a bit weird! I can look down at something, turn the plane to look at something all without really thinking about what my hands need to do, since they've been trained and my brain just does that automatically in response to what I want to do. This is true of normal RC airplane flying as well. People often ask me how I can remember to move my fingers in the opposite direction as the plane is flying towards me but the truth is I don't think about it at all very much. I just move the airplane where I want it to be.

The exciting goal of thought control, though, is obviously to enable people who don't have the use of limbs or fingers to control and interact with robotics, such as an artificial limb, as if it is part of the body. And as the test subject can attest, that's pretty much what happens with training. Now if they can just get the sensor equipment to weight less than a few tons and not draw metal objects towards it...

Yes, yes. We get it. You both are not antisemitic. You are anti-israeli. Or better, you "disagree with some policies of the Israeli government." Really, we do believe you. No need to get defensive and start a flame war about it.

Shame? No I don't think racists can be shamed. And anti-antisemitism is racism. And those two posters were anti-Semitic. I was informing them that the BS line that every anti-semite uses as an excuses to continue with the their antisemitic BS is just that. It's completely transparent. The only people agreeing with them are the one in their own circle jerk. And the only reason they think there are so many of them is because they on the internet which connects people who are far away. Otherwise, in an

I don't buy the "if you criticise anything at all about Israel then you're anti-semitic" argument, myself.

That's nice. I didn't make that argument, however. I made the argument that the 2 posters in question were anti-semitic and their criticism of Israel was just an outlet for their antisemitism. Actually, that was my judgement of their posts. I didn't really make any arguments to back up my claim... nor do I have to when I am being snide. And I was obviously being snide.

Didn't say it was. I made statement about 2 individuals -- not about a general concept. Those two were criticizing Israel as an outlet for their antisemitism. In fact, I made no statement about criticism of Israel in general. Israel, for example, has a high road traffic fatality rate. If you criticize their traffic laws, I don't think that would be antisemitic. In fact, claiming that criticism of Israel's traffic safety is antisemitic would be kooky. I just don't buy the assertion that the two posters

What information, apart from the posts themselves (which criticize Israel), did you use to deduce that the posters were anti-Semitic?

As I mentioned in another post, my judgement. Fully rational argument is only possible in the presence of perfect information. In the absence of full information (as is always the case with any individual posting on the Internet ), one must make estimates of truth value of statements, motivations, emotions, etc. based on one's best guess. And from the manner of those posts I judge the posters to be more concerned with finding an outlet for their racism/antisemitism than with any actual facts about Israel

Given how simple the concepts are, you should think twice before throwing this accusation out. Really.

if you cannot explain the reasons for the claims that you make,

I have explained it. You just haven't accepted the explanation. Which is fine. Reasonable people can disagree.

people react emotionally to terms like "anti-semite"

Well, I think people also react emotionally to antisemitic behavior itself. And to racist behavior. Those are not rational behaviors. They can't be reasoned away. Let me draw an analogy. Let's say your friend has a scar. And a bully at a play yard keeps talking about how ugly he is because

There is nothing uncommon about being jewish and being antisemitic. In fact, it's one of the oldest stories in the Western history. So "I am jewish" does not in any way whatsoever prove that you are not antisemitic. I am not saying that you are antisemitic. But I am saying that what offer as the proof that you are not does not rise up.

Existing MRI scanners are overwhelming auditory assault systems, and I can (in my sf-enthusiast imagination) conceive of no better way of limiting military drone pilot endurance than to link one to a state of the art MRI scanner. As if current Raptor trailer sessions probably don't produce enough "Hellfire" stress, in theory...

For a moment I thought this was going to be an article about how doctors can now get a clear picture of your brain by analyzing your Facebook profile, reducing the need for a traditional MRI, but somehow costing more.

I'm much less impressed by the 2k distance than the ability to control a device from the mind. The robot could be close to the student or - even better - on him [iron-man like], the achievement would be just as great.

Rawhide: Dr. Banzai is using a laser to vaporize a pineal tumor without damaging the parthogenital plate. A subcutaneous microphone will allow the patient to transmit verbal instructions to his own brain.Observer: Like, "raise my left arm"?Rawhide: Or "throw the harpoon." People are gonna come from all over. This boy's an Eskimo.

Wow you are an idiot. Have you ever been to Israel? Do you even know who the Palestinians are or where that name even comes from? I could rant on I am sure for many paragraphs uselessly, so I'll try to keep it relatively short...until you know our history, come to our country, see the reality on the ground, and educate yourself regarding the problems, please refrain from making misinformed ridiculous comments.

I think you are confused who the occupiers are. You try living somewhere where you are surrounded b